Power-efficient III-V/Silicon external cavity DBR lasers

Abstract

We report the design and characterization of external-cavity DBR lasers built with a III-V-semiconductor reflective-SOA with spot-size converter edge-coupled to SOI waveguides containing Bragg grating mirrors. The un-cooled lasers have wall-plug-efficiencies of up to 9.5% at powers of 6 mW. The lasers are suitable for making power efficient, hybrid WDM transmitters in a CMOS-compatible SOI optical platform.

Quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifier/silicon external cavity laser for O-band high-speed optical communications

“…28. The wall plug efficiency at 200 mA is 5%, which is comparable to the devices in the literature [8][9][10][11] and could be further improved by adjusting the edge coupler to better match the mode and putting an antireflective coating on the silicon chip.…”

“…A clear threshold is observed at around 90 mA. Some kinks due to mode hoping when the current is swept are also visible on the LI curve, a common occurrence for hybrid external silicon lasers, [8][9][10][11] but the kink near 250 mA is irregular and most likely due to mechanical or thermally induced alignment perturbations. The coupling loss between the silicon chip and RSOA is calculated to be 1.85 dB from the slope efficiency based on the theory in Ref.…”

“…The last decade witnessed tremendous enrichment and maturation of the silicon photonics device library, including high-performance passive components, [2][3][4] silicon modulators, 5 germanium on silicon photodetectors, 6,7 and hybrid integrated lasers. [8][9][10][11] Almost all silicon photonics devices demonstrated to date operate in the Cband (1530 to 1565 nm), which is within the fiber loss and erbium amplification window and is ideal for longhaul communications. However, for short reach interconnects such as interconnects in data centers, the O-band near 1310 nm is preferred to take advantage of the minimum dispersion window of standard optical fibers and is a widely used industry standard.…”

Chip-to-chip interconnect integration technologies

“…The excess loss caused by the optical couplers in the bridged interposer system is compensated by increasing the on-chip optical power to maintain a constant BER of 10 À12 . The wall plug efficiency of the laser is taken to be 9.5% [28] and the coupling loss is assumed to be 1 dB. The EPB for electrical transmission lines is a strong function of the interconnect length.…”

Wavelength-controlled external-cavity laser with a silicon photonic crystal resonant reflector

“…An alternative solution is the formation of External-Cavity (EC) lasers by the use of external reflectors based on Si and Reflective Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (RSOAs). The latter approach has the advantage of allowing independent design, fabrication and optimization cycles for the active and passive components, making a more effective use of the III-V materials [5,7].…”